Open Critique Day #6

If you have a HeroMachine illustration or another piece of artwork you've done that you'd like some help with, post a link to it in comments along with your thoughts on it -- what you think is working, what you're struggling with, etc. I will post my critique of the piece, hopefully giving some tips on how to improve it.

Of course everyone is welcome to post their critiques as well, keeping in mind the following rules:

Make sure your criticism is constructive. Just saying "This sucks" is both rude and unhelpful without giving specific reasons why you think it sucks and, ideally, some advice on how to make it better.

Each person should only post one illustration for critique to make sure everyone who wants feedback has a chance.

I will not critique characters entered in any currently running contest, as that doesn't seem fair to the other entrants. You can still post it if you like for the other visitors to critique, but I will not do so.

That's it! Hopefully we can get some good interaction going here and help everyone (me included!) learn a little bit today.

70 Responses to Open Critique Day #6

Rozenstal (1): Wow, way to start it off with a bang! I like the top half of the demon a lot, and the environment is excellent as well. Good color choices throughout, nice expression, and the concept of perching him on a broken tower wall is cool.

I’m not as sold on the lower half of the figure, which doesn’t quite look like it actually connects with the torso. I get what you were going for, but it juuuuust misses. I think with a few minor tweaks it might be possible to achieve the look you want.

Having the figure’s right knee poke up higher than the forearm in front of it would help set the dimensionality and layering, reinforcing the idea that he’s crouching. Right now the knee is hidden, so you are left with the visual impression that the leg might be behind the torso somehow, which doesn’t make sense, so you get jarred out of the image.

I think the feet have to be smaller, too. They’re just way too big; he’d look like he had clown shoes if he were standing upright. I get that they’re supposed to be the backward-knee reptilian kind of limbs, but given they way they’re posed they just look like abnormally long regular human appendages.

Finally, I think the figure’s left leg should be angled down more. The basic idea of the pose would be that his right leg is drawn up against his chest with the foot sort of behind him, like he’s squatting on it almost, while the left leg is more extended for balance with the foot well below the other one. Right now it’s set so he’s squatting on both of his heels but because he’s leaning and you’ve tried to turn him slightly to a three-quarters’ view, it doesn’t quite come off.

Hope that helps! It’s a very ambitious pose, pushing the software right to the edge, and you’re very close to making it happen. The actual design of the figure and the color choices etc. are all great, it’s just the pose that needs work still.

@Rozenstal: I like Scream Daemon, and the overall composition, a lot. The only thing that was throwing me off were his feet, but maybe that can be solved by changing the line color to red and changing the red part to black to somewhat match the rest of his body. But like I said, it’s pretty awesome overall.

It is difficult to decide which image to go with because there are so many I would like feedback on! Oh well, If I have to decide (and evidently I do) I will pick this one. Believe it or not this was one of my first HM3 creations. Admitedly I did create each person seperately and then paste them all to one picture at the end. What do you think?

Malfar (5): I’m not sure what effect you were going for here … There are a lot of elements that work against each other and it makes it hard to know what reaction to have. You’ve got the long white beard of an ancient, but the stubbly head of hair and face make him look like a young Marine. The body is very solid with black lines and opaque colors, but the hands and beard have colored lines that make them look less solid. The starbursts at shoulder and knees extend past the figure itself so they seem to be energy, but they can’t be seen through so they look solid. There’s a nifty blue-to-transparent globe but you can’t see through the heart of that either, again making it unclear if it’s energy or a globe or what.

Overall there’s a feeling of this design being incomplete, or unsure of what it’s supposed to be. I think it needs some more time “baking” as it were, making sure you know what effect you want before changing up the design itself.

I think you have the “bones” of a good character here, but it just needs more work.

MMI (6): This is a good example of why I don’t allow BMPs — almost 6MB for an image is just way, way too big. But that’s neither here nor there.

I like that you’ve chosen a consistent color scheme to help unite them into a family, that works great. And the figures themselves are all solid. I think I like Angus the most of the males, and Frida of the females.

One thing that might make it a stronger composite image would be if they were different heights or builds. They all look like variations on the same person, mostly because they’re exactly the same height. They look almost like a family of clones rather than a family of siblings, if you see what I mean.

The exception of course is Petra, who I assume is supposed to be a younger sib or child? If so, the proportions on her aren’t working to sell that concept, she looks more like a pixie or a shrunken-down adult. A child typically has a larger head in relation to the rest of their bodies.

But yes, definitely a nice collection of characters, who look like they all belong together. Particularly considering this was an early effort, it’s a very strong and impressive image. Well done!

Rozenstal (1): I have to say I really enjoy this image. The pose is great though it does need a little work (challanging poses are always welcome to me). I actually have no problem with the left arm/hand on the knee. It seems to me that the knee is in the palm of his hand. I do find the right arm hanging straight down a little odd. It seems to give the impression he is about to fall. I have to agree with the feet though. They seem out of place with the rest of the body (though the battle damage is sweet). Perhaps making the hands the same color and somehow hiding the area where the two colored areas meet(anklet and wrist guards?). Though they do look good, the all black wings seem out of place as well.

Malfar (5): I want to make a star field like that. I was trying to recently but could only come up with the star pattern (which doesn’t work too well for a night sky imho). The large star on the right side does seem a little too large though. Is it just me or do the mustache and beard not quite line up? Though they are not a problem, I am not a fan of the blue, shoulder bursts. I would have probably tried to make them more like shoulder guards (though that is probably not possible). Overall, a solid image to me.

rogue (12): I like the dynamism of the pose and the added oomph of the green energy bands, those work great. The smoky pattern in the clothing is good, too, and the flying loincloth adds to the movement of the whole piece. Overall, nice job!

One technical change you might make is using PNG as your export format instead of JPG. Particularly in this case, the pixelation from the format muddies things up and makes it hard to make out details.

In terms of the design itself, I lose a lot of detail in the skin areas because the tones are all so dark and so close to each other. A little more variation between color1 and color2 would probably help it pop more. The only other thing is that the wolf, being cut off the way he is, is more of a distraction than a strong supporting element.

Jadebrain (13): I like it! The armor and shield work great, the setting is well done, and I am glad to see a female gladiator for a change.

I’m not as crazy about the pantaloons, it seems like either skin-tight leggings or bare legs or even armor (masked onto her legs from the male armor if there isn’t a good female-dedicated one) would be better. And in the background, I think the clouds would work better if you used a different line color than black, that tends to make them a little too stark.

Mashlagoo (14): Groovy, baby! I like everything about this one, you’ve done a great job with a fun idea. About the only minor detail I can find to pick on is the nose, which seems to have the coloring reversed — usually the shadow is off to the side but here it looks like it’s on top.

Captain_Kicktar (17): Wow, kickin’ it old school with HM2, nice! I actually prefer the older one, in this case — the HM3 character frankly looks too mannish. Have you checked out the new Tops-FemaleFantasyArmor set? It should have that top in a cleavage-friendly version.

The question I’d have on the 2.x version is what that backing is on the pantaloons. I’m just not sure what it’s doing there. And on the HM3 version, the squared-off pants bottoms are a little jarring. Did I draw them that way or is there some masking of some sort going on?

I like the 2.x one a lot, though, that’s probably one of the better images I’ve seen come out of that version. Well done.

Yeah, the pantaloons are something that I probably use too much in my HM creations. Then again, loose pants are common clothing in the culture that most of the characters (including Reida) that I’ve made come from, and the pantaloons are the closest thing to that.

Reida was not first thought of as a DnD character – she was actually based on a historical character from a game I sometimes mention brainstorming. She was a warrior and healer in the Milandrian Revolution (remember the very first character contest, in which I entered Joles K’seir Milandred? I think the contest was patriotism-themed, and I also think Kaldath won that one.), and ended up marrying Joles K’seir Milandred, the leader of the revolution.

Either way, the point is, in the culture that Reida comes from, loose pants are common, and are used in the military more often than even actual leg armor.

Clearly the figure’s very well put-together, everything fits with everything else and looks good.

In terms of improvements, I’m not a big fan of the half-the-body-is-huge kinds of looks. I can’t help but wonder how they’d ever walk around with one leg that much bigger, you know?

I like the idea of the bricks in his body, but because the flat bricks don’t quite look right if they’re supposed to be three dimensionally rounded into the contours of an arm and leg. It ends up looking like a flat pattern and not actual body, if you get what I’m driving at. Not your fault, obviously, that’s the way the pattern’s made, but it is a bit distracting.

I have my far share of stinkers or course most of them don’t make it to my hero thread over on UGO, though some of them have. On this particular piece I was mostly interested in the feed back on the background as it was partly created by accident. When I was doing my screen capture ( I don’t like the way the program itself converts the image to a png, so I always do screenshoots instead ) I had my mouse accidently floating on the buildings which made them transparent. I liked the effect of how the clouds showed through the building making it look like it was surrounding it so I kept it, but wasn’t sure what others thought of it.

Danny (27): Much better than the original, clearly, in terms of being a more “serious” attempt at a super-hero design. I like the torso and helmet combination, I think those work great. And purple and gray look good together.

I’m not as big a fan of the insignia, in my opinion it’s too life-like a fist to read as a graphic symbol. It ends up looking like a severed hand in a glass case rather than something meant to serve as a logo.

I’d also have gone with a darker purple for the background. With it being the same color as the uniform, they kind of blend into each other and you lose the character a bit.

Finally, I’d encourage you to use “Save as PNG” instead of “Save as JPG” when outputting your images. That would help get rid of that muddy pixillation you’re getting on the red building ledge.

@Mashlagoo #14 I would move the left forearm and hand a bit so that it is resting on the leg. That is what I think you were going for. But right now the hand looks like it is sort of. So just move them in a bit to match it up. Also I noticed there was a cloud in the back ground. It is almost completely lost on the image though. Maybe make it whiter.

@Captain_Kicktar #17 The main thing that makes the remake look so masculine I think is the face. If you just move the entire face down 5 pixels it should look a lot better.

@Alex #26 I really like that face not sure how you did that. A thing that I just noticed is the gun. You should put that on the other side. I don’t see him using his massive brick arm pulling a out a gun as big as his finger.

@Myro #31 Seems kind of odd to me that the boots and gloves don’t match in color. I see that you were trying not to have the boots and pants the same shade but maybe if you switched them it would look better.

Myro (31): I’m going to just talk about how to get the HM3 one to look more like the 2.x one, only better.

I’d start with the background. I actually like the warmer, reddish tones in the original to the cooler blues of the new one. I think a more “red skies at dawn” kind of look would help the overall feel a lot.

The next big thing for me would be the coat. The first one has a more authentic pirate look, and while I think you can get there with HM3 it will take more work. I think there’s an open button-down vest-only version of what you have there — I’d go with that and tack on the puffy sleeves. I want to say there’s a version of sleeves that ends in ruffles, try those and see how they look. If not, use the puffy ones but shorten them so they end at the middle of the forearm. Then use the gloves you have there, the Captain America style ones, but shrink them a bit flatter and move them up to cover the join. Color them the same as the sleeves, so they look like they’re the rolled up ends of the sleeves.

I think the head area is already better in the HM3 one, so nothing to add there.

I think the red you have in the HM3 one is too “cherry” and not enough “scary”. Go darker on that.

Also on colors, I like the original black pants with red boots more than the black boots. I think you also need to differentiate the color of the cravat from the shirt from the cummerbund. They’re all the same yellow and it flattens it out too much. In the original you have a splash of red behind the cravat that really helps it pop — maybe you could try a white cravat with a darker yellow shirt, keeping the sash the current lighter yellow.

Finally, I think you need to try and work in some ruffles on the shoulder. That’s a nice touch in the original that you can probably make using either a Cape Front or one of the Shoulder Pads in HM3.

Oquies (36): First of all, it’s a nice illustration. I don’t think you have a ton to do to it, it’s pretty darn good as-is.

But if you were looking to improve it, I think for me the main problem is the stance. If you have one foot out like that, not bearing weight, the body has to shift, tilting the hips one way and the shoulders the opposite, with the high end of the hips being over the weight-bearing foot. Do a search for “contrapposto” to see what I am talking about there.

It’s a very subtle thing, but I suspect that’s what you are finding disconcerting about the current iteration of the image.

But the actual character design and background and such are great, nothing much to add there. Well done.

Okay, guys, here we go AGAIn with my silly half-orc drawing. It’s about 95% perfect, but I’d like some advice on a couple of points:

A) what do you make of the sunset that I put together? I didn’t find that bright sunlight OR a night-time scene quite worked, whereas she seems to blend into the dusk.

B) I need some ideas for how to give her a better design for a dress, tunic-bottom, or skirt. I’m pretty happy with the top she has on, but it’s hard to blend with anything effectively. Creative ideas involving masking, clipping, or whatever are par for the course!

Tuldabar (32): I like the basic character a lot. He makes a great rock troll type of guy.

I find the tabard very distracting. It looks like you have a pattern applied to it but visually it’s just a hash. I also don’t quite get the patterning on the hammer. There are some severe angles on that thing, but the pattern naturally is flat, so it’s jarring. I’d also like to see some color in the eyes and teeth to help separate those out from the rock skin.

Nick (42): I think you linked to the thumbnail, not the main full-sized image. I can barely see that thing! From what I CAN make out, the sunset looks good. I can’t really see enough to comment on part B, unfortunately.

Aaron (41): A strong character design. I like the item selections and look of him. For me, though, the color needs some work. Specifically, I think if you went with a darker gray instead of a black for the color2 areas, you’d get a much better effect. That might help the middle sliver that shows through the coat stand out too — currently it’s all so dark it just looks like he’s wearing a black leotard under there.

Jeff (39): I have to admit, reading the first two sentences, I was pretty skeptical about where you were going on this, I thought the upgrade went okay, and I wasn’t sure I wanted it like the old one. By the end of your comments though, I was pretty slack-jawed in awe on what you came up with. I guess this is why you’re the guy in charge, while I’m the schmuck asking for feedback. I’m really excited to try the ideas you suggested now.

Yes, the sky is definitely cool. I like that a lot, nice effect. In fact, I bet if you were to put together a tutorial or recipe guide for that, a lot of people would find it helpful.

I also like the head, hair, and leggings a lot.

I agree that the tunic and its bottom are not as successful as the rest of it. I am not quite sure what to suggest that would be better as I don’t know her general story or what kind of effect she should have. But I would think one of the split-in-the-middle dresses could work there, or the flared coat bottom. Something to give her a little flair down there. There’s also an appropriately-sized animal-fur wrapping in the new Tops-FemaleFantasyArmor that might work if she’s more of a ranger/barbarian type.

The main thing that doesn’t work for me in this current iteration, though, is the quiver. Pink is definitely not the way to go in terms of color, for my money. It doesn’t match the rest of her color palette, and just doesn’t seem like a “quivery” type of color in general. Plus it’s awkward the way she’s holding it — there’s no way you could draw and load an arrow from that position. So it’s like she’s giving it a hug or something … I mean, love your weapons but don’t, you know, LOVE your weapons …

yeah, it’d a surprising color selection, and I’m not completely opposed to changing it. But before I do, here was my thinking: Archers, as a rule, make their “fletchings” as bright as possible, so that they can *find* them easily. Since a pale pink was not out of a medieval dye-basket’s range, I gave it a shot. (Medieval people LOVED color, despite what you’ve heard). And since I don’t want a female character to be “a guy with breasts,” I decided to try it.
I also thought of a pale yellow, but that might blend in with her costume too much. The real problem is, that whatever color you choose for the arrows, becomes the colored band around the quiver, as well. If I could color them separately, I would. But in the meantime, I’ll experiment with something else.

I had a hard time positioning the quiver, too. In fact, a lot of archers carry quivers in hip- or belt-carried designs, although I guess she could carry it lower. Her cape prevents me from making it look good as a back-slung quiver, and I couldn’t quite figure out how to do it as a “shoulder bag” design, like the Indians used. Maybe I could tilt it forward more?

Yes, she is a ranger/barbarian, and I gave her the “bearskin” under the presumption that it was something she’d killed (By the way, thanks for adding that one.) I gave her a regular tunic/shirt to wear, though, on the assumption that she might go into town every once in a while. (I also thought of just ditching it, and letting her wear the chainmail on the outside: opinion?)

As forthe dress, here’s the thing: she’s a big, tough, ugly (to humans), tomboy of a woman who got pretty much raised as a boy, and her feminine side is a sore spot. She doesn’t like it when people forget she’s a woman, and she tries (however falteringly) to remind people wherever she can. While a man’s tunic would probably be more practical, deep down, she would probably want her outfit to look at least *somewhat* womanly. An idea: we should think of what Pocahontas might wear.

There’s at least one more tunic/top that i’m prepared to try; maybe I can sample that, too…

Nick (50): Here’s a thought on your quiver problem (at least one of tthem). Select the quiver twice, with one lying directly on top of the other in layers. Then select the square under the Insignia category (I think all three subcategories in Insignia carry it, but it’s definitely in Insignia: Standard), and resize it to block just the quiver and not the arrows. Mask the quiver on the upper layer to the square insignia, and then push the insignia to the lowest layer. What you should end up with is what looks like a single quiver with arrows that you can color differently than the actual quiver band.

Nick Hentschel (50) If you want the strap to be a different color from the fletching all you need to do is use two quivers with different colors overlapping one another. Mask one of them to an object that you can send to the back and presto, you’re set.

She’s like an elvan warrior type thing. Had trouble with the axe/har/bandana layering. I tried different thing but the more layers I added to get it to work the more HM3 would crash on me [freeze, give me items i didn’t select, etc…]. She’s fairly simple actually but a pretty decent representation of my work. I wish I had my computer working so I could upload one with a background but I’m stuck with whats on my USB for now. Oh well…

@Jeff: Thanks for the critique! I agree with what you said about the chest emblem, it would look better if the hand were a graphic design. Unfortunately, I can’t use what isn’t there. As soon as you add a fist to “Insignia-Standard” I will try it and see how it looks, I’m sure it will look much better. Also, I always save in”PNG”, I don’t know why red looks muddy.

Nick Hentschel (50) Now that the cat is out of the bag (or shall I say FNF final round is here) I don’t mind embelishing on my earlier message to you (53) regarding your quiver. This method seemed to work well for me and might help you with your image.

I didn’t want to post these before the contest as they might have unduely affected things.